


Saffron Days

by misura



Category: No Reservations (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, F/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-12-15 19:37:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She said: "The amount of money they're asking is outrageous."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He said: "Will you marry me?"</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saffron Days

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: _Kate/Nick & Zoe, saffron sauce, family and bistros_ (lothy)

He said: "It's a good location. A good place for a bistro."

(He didn't say: "They weren't able to make it work for them, but we'll do just fine. We're better cooks; people will be coming for your saffron sauce, my singing." The last bit would be a joke, of course. It might have made her smile, and he liked doing that.)

She said: "The amount of money they're asking is outrageous." Her expression made him wonder what she was envisioning the pile of money as. Truffles, perhaps - or a boatload of fish. Gallons of her excellent saffron sauce she'd be able to make with that kind of money.

He said: "I can talk them down to - " and named a number representing an amount of money that was still dazzling, still more money than he'd ever imagined owning, let alone spending.

She didn't look convinced. Tempted, perhaps, a little bit, but not convinced. There might be other places; other people who hadn't quite been able to make it work for them. They made Nick nervous, just a bit, because just as management skills and a good location weren't enough, excellent cooking and a good location might also not be enough, and then what would they do?

(Answer: find a job. Try again later. Keep smiling, in Nick's case; keep being made to smile, in Kate's.)

He said: "Will you marry me?"

 

_four months later_

_"The moon, the moon,"_ Nick sings, a little bit more loudly than he has to, because he knows it will put a slight frown on Kate's face, and he loves kissing those away, loves to see her smile (she does it with her eyes, more often than most people notice). 

It's early hours, still, before the big lunch rush. _"Is made of cheese, of cheese."_

Zoe scrunches up her nose at him. She's a sharp cookie; she _knows_ 'el mondo' does not actually translate to 'the moon', but she's also in on the Grand Conspiracy, so she graciously lets him get away with a whole lot, if it's for Kate.

 _"Round like a pizza."_ Nick gestures grandly with his skimmer, more or less in time with the music. Kate gives him that look she always gives him when she's smiling quietly, on the inside.

He considers kissing the tip of her nose. Zoe wouldn't mind too much, he knows, but Kate still feels it's inappropriate, and she's the one wearing the executive chef's chef's hat today so.

_"Oh, so round like a pizza."_

They'll go shopping, after work today. Zoe will be at Sean's, because boys of a certain age need a keeper more than Nick and Kate need one (a hard-won argument, but it was eventually acknowledged that the ability to make pancakes is an important factor in these kinds of decisions).

He's got the shopping list, the recipe in his head by now. The route is familiar, the shops, the faces of the shopkeepers. Most of them much friendlier than Mrs You Touch You Buy. (She wasn't wrong, though, Nick thinks. He's touched; he's bought. He wouldn't have had it any other way.)

_"Round like a pizza."_

The day after tomorrow, perhaps, they will put pizza on the menu. Not tomorrow, because tomorrow is a special day, a saffron sauce day. A day on which people will be standing in line, waiting for an empty table - and it's silly, they all agree (him and Kate and Zoe), because everything Kate cooks is fantastic (Nick's opinion, and Kate agrees) and everything Nick cooks is quite good (Kate's opinion, and Nick feels it's an understatement, but still high praise, given the source).

Zoe hasn't quite learned how to cook yet - by no fault of hers, obviously. It's simply that she can't quite reach high enough yet, that her arms aren't quite long enough.

_"The moon, the moon. Is made of cheese, of cheese."_

She'll grow up to be a beauty, with the mind to tear a man's heart out, just like her aunt. Nick can see it happening right in front of him, sees it in the way Sean's two boys act around her.

_"Round like a pizza. Oh, so round like a pizza."_

From the corner of his eyes, Nick watches Kate approach the CD player. She makes it look casual, natural - she'll never share his fondness for opera in the kitchen, even if she puts up with it as she does with the rest of him, which is to say: fondly, most of the time, provided one knows how to spot the signs. The agreement they've reached (silently) is that he won't object to her switching the music off provided she doesn't do so again within ten minutes, which she will do provided Nick waits at least five minutes before turning it on again.

It works something like that, anyway. (The important thing is: it works. _They_ work. They're making this work.)

 _"Juicy tomato,"_ Nick sings, momentarily too distracted to come up with anything better. _"Juicy tomato. Tasty tomato. Tasty tomato."_

Kate moves past the CD player, on to the herb rack. A clever feint, possibly. A trick to lull him into a false sense of security.

He wonders how good her Italian is, on occasion. He suspects it might be better than she's ever given him reason to assume it to be.

Nick is very fond of the idea that her Italian is, in fact, as good as his own, if not better. (He learned his mostly in the kitchen - the practical stuff. Plus, naturally, a handful of insults one bestows on the boyfriend of one's cherished daughter, even if Nick admits he's not quite sure of the translation of some of the more obscure words, which might be for the better, really.)

_"Make a sauce. Make a sauce. Make a tomato sauce."_

That she knows what the real words to the song are, and that that's the reason why she doesn't turn it off. That Kate is secretly, in her heart of hearts, as much of a romantic as he is.

_"The world, the world. Is full of light, of light. It is your smile, oh, it is your smile. Sweet smile, sweet smile. Joyous smile, joyous smile. That makes it so."_

 

(She said: "Why?")

(He said: "Why not?")


End file.
